On the Side of Caution
by Fanficworm
Summary: Oneshot. Rose finds someone the Doctor refuses to save. Spoilers for Human Nature and Family of Blood.


**Disclaimer**: Doctor Who does not belong to me. And probably best that it stay that way, because I would've made Martha fall off that ledge during _Utopia_.

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**On the Side of Caution**_  
by Fanficworm_

Rose had just finished putting on a new dress from the deeper depths of the TARDIS's closet. She and the Doctor were headed off to a planet in the Toraji system as it was around the 1950's. Normally she wouldn't have strayed too far from her usual jeans and hoodie ensemble, but the Doctor had shown her such lovely pictures of the natives of that planet. The women there had the most elegant fashion, all long and flowing dresses made out of some material that moved in the air like silk under water or milk poured into tea.

So when the Doctor said that he had a small collection of those types of dresses in the wardrobe (for female companions only, he swore; none for his own use) she just had to try it out.

The fabric of her dress wafted in the still air as if she had mini fans all over and around her body, all of them blowing onto the dress to make her look like one of those models on the telly. She touched it, and it felt something like silk, but... not, somehow. The thought escaped her in the end.

She smoothed down a few wrinkles and admired herself in the mirror. It didn't look bad on her, either. Very flattering. Shame about the length, though. You could hardly run in those dresses, and travelling with the Doctor meant a lot of running. She couldn't make this dress a regular thing.

Though if she could just... alter it a bit... Yeah, if she could sew, that actually wouldn't be too bad an ide--

She spotted something moving out of the corner of her eye, a flash of red. She took a look around behind her and found nothing there she could've mistaken for that thing.

Maybe the TARDIS was playing tricks on her again. She remembered sometimes, when she was just starting out travelling with the Doctor, the TARDIS would go all Harry Potter on her and move the corridors around. But that was when they had nothing to do except float around the Time Vortex. The TARDIS never really did anything like that while they were in flight. Though that didn't really help her worries about what the red might've been.

The Doctor's voice came in from the corridors outside. "You decent yet?"

"Yeah, you can come in."

"Great." He strode in, all pinstripes and trainers, loving that it bothered her she was the only one dressing up. "As memorable as it was I do _not_ want a repeat of last time I caught you with the kit off." He rubbed a cheek. "You Tyler women. I can still feel that slap."

She laughed. "It was your fault. Served you right," she said. "I wouldn't have minded so much if you weren't gawping at me like some..." she thought a second, "...inquisitive goldfish."

She ignored his look of confusion and gave her hair a few teasing flicks with her fingers. "Anyway," she smoothed down the dress again, "what d'you think? Will it do?"

His stare up and down her body said volumes more than his dismissive mumble of, "meh, looks all right".

The flash of red came back, and she looked behind again to see what it was. But there was nothing there. Again.

"What is it?" the Doctor said, suddenly examining himself in the mirror. "Something in my hair?"

"No, no, it's..." she looked again. "I dunno. It's gone."

He looked at the area she looked at, and smiled indulgently. "What, is it the red balloon again?"

"Shut up," she said. "It's real, I swear. Just... there. In the corner of your eye. A flash of red."

The Doctor shook his head and started to lead her out. "Come on," he said. "You've been in front of that thing too long."

She was about to push him away and have go at him when she saw it again. The red. Except this time it wasn't just a flash anymore. It was just there, staying still.

"Wait," she said, and peered closer at the mirror despite the Doctor's annoyed protests.

The red really did belong to a red balloon. It just stood there, suspended in the air, kept from flying away by a string being held by a sad little girl. You could barely see the girl, standing there in the reflection of what was an empty doorway, but there she was. She looked young, only about nine or so, and wore clothes that looked like something out of the old faded photographs Rose's gran used to show her when talking about how things used to be. And she stared, not at Rose but at the Doctor, a mixture of fear and want in her eyes.

"Oh my God," Rose said. "There, d'you see? I told you! It's real!"

About to lose his patience with Rose, he glanced at what she was pointing at if only to shut her up, and all the smugness drained from his face.

"D'you see her?" she said.

"I see her," he said, and got his nose right up close to the mirror to see her closer. The girl responded by coming out a little further from the doorway. "Oh, you poor thing," he said to the girl, who seemed to hear him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Rose checked the doorway again to see if there was any movement from there, but there was none. "She's just... in the mirror. Like she's living inside some sort of mirror dimension or something."

"Kind of, but it's more complicated than that," he said.

The girl looked at him expectantly, and when he continued to study her like some new discovery she grew bitter and glared, as if insulted he didn't recognise her.

"I think she thinks you're snubbing her," Rose said.

"Can't imagine why," he said. "Never seen her before in my life."

The girl continued to stare. By now a sort of acceptance had established itself onto her face and she wasn't glaring anymore, just... looking at the Doctor, all sad and very very tired.

The balloon continued to float above her head.

"So what happened to her, d'you think?"

"Dimensional manipulation," he said. "She's been changed from 3D to 2D, basically, using something not unlike ionic energy. It's a bit like the girl with the pencils, but on a much larger scale. Something's made it so that she's just light now. Light with some sort of consciousness." he let out a low whistle. "And that takes a lot of power. That kind of technology's pretty rare. Only a handful of ionic dimensional manipulators exist out there. There's one in the TARDIS somewhere, but..." he stopped, thinking.

"So we can help her?" Rose said. "We can bring her out, then?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Takes much more power to add dimensions than it does to take them away," he said. "Doing something like that would mean we couldn't leave the TARDIS for about a week. And you've been seeing her a lot lately, haven't you?"

She shrugged. "Around the place, yeah. Few mirrors on some planets and times, but mainly it's been here in the TARDIS. Why?"

He stepped away from the mirror. "How about that." He put on his glasses. "Universal dimensional manipulation. And across time, too. I didn't think that was possible. It was all supposed to be just a theory. Never mind Hitler, this one must've made him look like a fluffy bunny."

Rose spotted him looking into the girl's sad, pleading eyes. "But imagine that," he breathed. "Trapped in every reflective surface in every time across the entire universe. And since light can't die it'll be immortality. Immortality but immortality not worth living."

"Blimey," Rose said. "Better be more careful when I'm takin' a shower, then."

The girl turned to look at Rose now, mouthing something that Rose couldn't make out, and then signalling with her eyes to look at the Doctor. If Rose didn't know any better she'd think it were a warning.

"But really, Doctor," she said, "there's got to be _something_ we could do. You know, just to help a bit."

The Doctor took off his glasses and rubbed them, still watching her. "Whatever trapped her knew what it was doing. This isn't just something you do on a whim; this is serious punishment. This is a prison. And a pan-spaciotemporal ionic dimensional reduction means..."

"What, Doctor?"

"Something serious." He placed his glasses back into his suit pocket. "Deadly serious. This one's trouble."

The girl seemed to hear that, and she sighed in defeat.

The Doctor gave Rose a look of warning before she could say anything. "Trust me, Rose," he said. "This is one person we shouldn't save."

None of the Doctor's explanations could help Rose feel anything this girl did justified her punishment. This was a little girl, or at least something that looked like a little girl. No crime should've been big enough that she had to be trapped forever to lurk in the corners of mirrors with no hope. She couldn't help but think her executioners should've just killed her instead. Much more merciful. But this was just...

"Mind you, though, whatever trapped her in there," she said, "I'd never wanna meet it."

"Neither would I," the Doctor said, and took hold of Rose's hand. She squeezed his hand back in support, and he smiled at that.

"I'll be in the console room," he said. "Meet me there when you're ready to go."

He left, and Rose watched the mirror until the girl was finally out of sight before following him out.


End file.
